What the science says about living near giant hog operations and methane digesters
Release Date: 01/16/2024
The Land Owns Us
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In this episode of Unconfined, James Skeet waxes philosophical on European-style, settler-oriented, colonialism-informed agriculture and re-imagines an agricultural practice that relies instead on indigenous regenerative intelligence.
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Monopoly Money: On the Iowa Hog Barons Behind Your Bacon
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In this episode of Unconfined, author Austin Frerick discusses the barons who dominate US food production, including an Iowa farm couple who spun enormous, manure-spewing hog operations into a vast fortune.
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Confused by Nutrition Research? Blame Big Food
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In this episode of Unconfined, Marion Nestle reveals the food industry's recipe for cooking up academic nutrition research that serves its interests—not yours.
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Is Animal Agriculture Contributing to Bird Flu Spread?
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In this episode of Unconfined, two leading experts, Meghan Davis and Erin Sorrell, take us from farming communities to policy circles to explain how bird flu spreads, who is at risk, and what we can do to slow this outbreak.
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What Trump II Means for Our Food
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In this episode of Unconfined, three experts help us sort through the new administration's agenda and try to figure out what it all might mean for food policy. , program manager for fair food and farming systems at the Open Markets Institute; and primary writer of , a newsletter covering corporate consolidation of agriculture markets. , policy director at National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, which also produces a , this one on Beltway policy developments. , professor of political science at the Johns Hopkins Krieger School of Arts and Science, where he teaches...
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A People’s Scientist Meets a Tiny Fish
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In this episode of Unconfined, World Food Prize winner Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted explains how biodiversity, local resources, and saying “no” to pricy pesticides helped cut childhood hunger in Bangladesh
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The Weird, Beautiful Oyster
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In this episode of Unconfined, Dave Love explains oyster farming, why it’s impossible to industrialize it, and how oysters offer benefits ranging from amino acids to storm surge buffers.
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Abundant Salmon, Troubled Waters
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In this episode of Unconfined, veteran journalists Douglas Frantz and Catharine Collins expose what lies beneath those rosy salmon filets that grace our supermarket seafood cases.
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A Livable Future for Fisheries
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In this episode of Unconfined, Philip Loring discusses practical ways for fishers, grocers, and consumers to contribute to the repair and restoration of global fisheries.
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Fish Stories
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In this episode of Unconfined, author and life-long fisherman Paul Greenberg makes the case for eating more wild-caught U.S. seafood—and much less factory-farmed shrimp and salmon from abroad.
info_outlineUnconfined Podcast with Guest Chris Heaney
Back in the 1990s, a University of North Carolina epidemiologist named Steve Wing pursued what was then a novel idea: to find out the health effects of living, drinking water, and breathing near CAFOs, he didn’t just set up sensors and draw blood from nearby residents. Instead, he consulted them about what questions to ask, often listing them as co-authors on academic papers. In the decades since, he spearheaded a large body of research demonstrating the dire health effects, physical and mental, of living amid the hog industry’s stench and pollution. Wing died of cancer in 2016. One of his proteges, Johns Hopkins University professor Chris Heaney, has carried on in Wing’s tradition—and is now studying how biodigesters affect life in the area. In the final episode of our biogas series, Heaney breaks down the community-directed research, and updates us on his ongoing biodigester work.